I shopped for a two-day ice storm as though we were going to be stranded on the prairie for two weeks with Ma and Pa Ingalls.

Frozen fountain in Mobile's Bienville Square.al.com

Lord, I apologize.

For the things I’ve muttered under my breath about people who don’t know how to deal with weather on the Gulf Coast, I am heartily sorry. Ditto for all the times I’ve made fun of Northerners during hurricane season.

I’ve had to eat my words recently, Lord, and they weren’t very tasty. Mother Nature turned on the coastal South, and I became one of the people who didn’t know what to do or what to buy or where to go. Thus, along with other ignorant Gulf Coast residents, I shopped for a two-day ice storm as though we were going to be stranded on the prairie for two weeks with Ma and Pa Ingalls.

Now I have too much bread, too much milk, a surplus of wine, and enough Honey Nut Cheerios to feed a room full of preschoolers. Those things can be consumed or frozen, of course, but still, it’s embarrassing.

Northerners know how much food they need to keep on hand when an ice- or snowstorm is approaching, and how much firewood to bring inside and whether or not they need to call the propane company.

Their water pipes aren’t exposed, so they don’t have to run around like fools, wrapping pipes and rigging light bulbs in pump houses at the last minute.

Most of them have garages, and the ones who don’t know the little secrets – from using engine warmers to spraying cooking oil on the insides of their car doors – that make it easier to get in and crank up their vehicles in freezing weather.

When you live 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, you don’t know these things, which means that every 25 years or so, you pay for your ignorance. Your pipes freeze, you burn the last piece of firewood from the truckload you bought five years ago, and/or you have to use a pot of warm water to unstick your car door.

The worm turns in the summertime, however. When the calendar hits June 1 -- the opening day of hurricane season -- long-time coastal residents know to make sure that they’ve got at least a few cases of bottled water, a couple of flashlights and several packages of D batteries stashed in their utility rooms. When a storm stirs in the Gulf of Mexico, they fill their cars with gas and get some cash from the ATM. If they’re low on pet food, prescription medicine, canned goods or beer, they buy those things.

They know whether they should stay put or evacuate, whether or not to go to the trouble of boarding up their windows, and whether they’re likely to need a chain saw or a generator afterward.

They do not go berserk, because even though every hurricane is unique, experience has given them a general idea of what to expect. It’s the transplants – the people from the Midwest and the North – who storm the doors of Walmart, buying as much food, bottled water, batteries, flashlights and gas cans as they can stuff in their shopping carts.

The transplants don’t understand the nuances of weather forecasts or how to listen for that certain change in TV meteorologists’ voices that signals genuine danger. Nor have they lived on the coast long enough to gauge whether they should stay home, go to a local shelter or head to Atlanta – meaning too many of them clog the highways and get stuck on interstates when they would have been a lot more comfortable at home, waiting out the storm in their darkened dens.

They act that way because they don’t know any better, not because they’re stupid. Yet I have treated them as though they were ignoramuses, Lord.

Now that I’ve gotten a dose of my own medicine and acted like a dummy in the face of unfamiliar weather conditions, help me be more understanding when roles are reversed and I’m the one who’s comfortable with Mother Nature.

If I’m too obstinate to learn my lesson now, Lord, then at least help me to not be surprised when, in another 25 or 30 years, I’m eating my words again.

Frances Coleman is a freelance writer who lives in Baldwin County. Email her at fcoleman1953@gmail.com and “like” her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/prfrances.

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